


the anatomy of time

by contorno



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Justified Character Death, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:00:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26196784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contorno/pseuds/contorno
Summary: The first time Margot considered killing Mason, she did not yet know what death was.Or: It's time to talk about what Margot wants.
Relationships: Alana Bloom/Margot Verger
Comments: 22
Kudos: 93





	the anatomy of time

**Author's Note:**

> i know the tags sound horrible but i promise the ending makes it worth it (sidenote: will and hannibal aren't that relevant to this story but they're in it so i'm tagging them for clout)

The first time Margot considered killing Mason, she did not yet know what death was; only that mother was gone, that she hardly remembered her face at all, and that wherever the woman was, Margot wanted Mason there, too. Away from her and the house and the horses, because he was always so terribly mean to them.

Although Margot didn’t quite understand death, she understood pain. And knew it, too, _knows_ it, but she’s never liked to think about that. Instead, she thought of her father. Papa and his pigs. The small knife he kept in the pocket of his pants. It always slid so easily into and out of the skin. Margot cried the first few times it happened, and Mason held onto her head, hands squeezing her temples almost painfully, so that she could not look away. 

Even if she hadn’t seen it, she would still have known it happened by the way the pig shrieked, hooves clacking against the floor as soon as it was released from its grip and could flee.

She wondered if Mason could squeal that way, too. She wanted to find out.

Papa was so kind to her that afternoon; when he saw his daughter not turn away in disgust and sympathy, but smile as she watched the silver blade disappear and come out wet and glistening.

“See, Margot,” Mason said as he threw his arm around her shoulder, pulled her closer to him. “It’s not so bad once you realize they’re just stupid pigs.”

She imagined the weight of the knife in her own small hand, and her smile widened. The softest places of the human body, the ones with the most meat to them: waist, belly, thighs, calves. Mason was thin at the time, the way young boys often are, but that only meant the knife wouldn’t slide in very far. It certainly wouldn’t make it hurt any less.

“Yes,” she said. “Stupid pigs.”

* * *

The years of Margot’s childhood blurred together until she could no longer trust herself to remember things as they had happened.

Later, when everything is both better and worse, Doctor Lecter tells her it’s a common reaction to trauma, to lose your perception of time and repress so many memories that they all blend together, and Margot, of course, shrugs it off because she always does. But she doesn’t have to pity herself to know that it’s true. There’s a lot she has forgotten, whether she chose to or not, and what little she remembers of her childhood has become obscure, almost indistinguishable from each other. 

It was hot outside when she met the girl who would be her first kiss, the green of the trees so vibrant they seemed unreal compared to the bleak walls of the house. The two of them spent the day together not talking very much and by the end, the girl raised her hand to Margot’s face to remove a strand of hair that had escaped from her ponytail and was now stuck to her forehead, tucking it behind her ear. Margot held her breath the entire time, focused on the tender skin on the inside of the girl’s wrist and confused by how much she wanted to touch it. 

It was a different kind of hot outside on the day that she made someone bleed. The sun was glaring down at them, almost white against the gray sky. Her clothes clung to her back and legs, drenched in sweat because even when the heat was unbearable, she would not go a day without at least visiting the horses. She wasn’t alone. Someone was with her.

Then, for reasons she couldn’t recall, her teeth sunk into the tender flesh of a wrist. Someone screamed and, yes, that must have been Mason. It must have been. It must have. 

But what of the girl and her soft skin and the way Margot’s fingertips itched with how much she wanted to trace it? The girl wouldn’t kiss someone who dug her teeth into her, would she? Or maybe she would.

Something ripped inside the wrist. She felt it in her jaws, was almost certain she heard the _snap_ of it. The screaming got louder, but she only let go when a fist began pounding against her back. She had bruises there afterward, or so she was told. She wasn’t convinced they weren’t there before. 

The blood tasted odd. She’d had blood in her mouth before from when she bit her tongue or the insides of her cheeks, but this was not her own and that was impossible to forget. There was a lot of it, too; so much that she began spitting it out while someone was cursing at her, calling her horrible names in a shrill voice that could have belonged to anyone, could have belonged to both Mason and the girl. 

Now, Margot still can’t remember all of it. She doesn’t remember the girl’s name or her face or her voice. When she thinks back, the girl was taller than her and her hair was blond and short, her face framed by glasses that made her eyes look huge. It’s not what the girl actually looked like. Even Doctor Lecter, who never met her, tells her so. But it is what Mason looks like, has looked like all his life, and he’s always known how to ruin.

Finally, here is how Margot remembers the end: Blood in her mouth and dribbling down her chin. Her heart was in her throat, her insides tied into tight knots. 

“What's _wrong_ with you? Look what you did to me!” Mason pressed his other hand against the wounded wrist as if that may stop the bleeding, and he cried terribly for the rest of the day.

It was a beautiful sound. The memory of it still makes her smile.

* * *

What left an even stronger imprint in Margot’s memory than the injury she caused was its aftermath. Back then, she expected the worst and then some. She would not have been surprised if Mason tried to kill her and succeeded. Perhaps their father would have even let him get away with it. Taken his son into his arms when he emerged from her bedroom with blood on his hands or simply wide-blown pupils and trembling legs. She spent many nights awake, her eyes fixed on the ceiling and her hand folded over the covers, waiting. Her heart didn’t race. Whatever he was going to do to her, she would either survive it or she wouldn’t, and then it would finally be over.

Later, when she tells this to Doctor Lecter, he looks almost sad. She isn’t sure she likes it.

Mason, of course, didn’t kill her. Instead, he became almost kind. Awkwardly so, because he wasn’t used to it, but he tried. He really tried to make Margot believe it. It took a few days to convince her. She had always been clever for her age and wasn’t so easily deceived. But she was also young, no more than 13 years old, and after a week or so she let her guard down. When Mason wasn’t horrible to her, he could be funny, and so she began to believe him because she wanted to. Because she needed to. Even when she hated him, part of her had always wanted to love him, too, because he was all she had. At least that was what he always told her.

The cutting cruelty with which he treated Margot afterward, after she had begun to feel safe around him, replaces most of what she remembers of her teenage years. She remembers her first kiss, but not her second. (Or she remembers but chooses, every day, to forget.) There isn’t much laughter in her memories, nor tenderness. There’s a knife and Mason and a body that doesn’t feel like it ever was her own. 

The first time a girl touched her became the first wound. The first time she touched a girl cut almost to the bone.

He made sure, always, that she knew he could kill her without many repercussions, and that he was capable of it, too. She never believed he would do it—he’d get lonely without her—but sometimes anger or, worse, curiosity clouded his mind as if possessing him. On those days, he apologized after he was done with her. Not to lessen her pain, but to rid himself of momentary shame. She never forgave him, but perhaps he thought she did because she pressed her lips shut, trying not to cry and shout and curse at him. There was no way of knowing what he would do to her if she didn’t stay quiet. Maybe he really would have killed her then.

So she endured his torture, to protect herself and keep up the family reputation. It was what Papa had scolded her for the most when she hurt Mason: That it was difficult to keep it a secret. When he died, Margot took it upon her to be especially careful not to catch too much attention. She never screamed, always covered up the bruises and scars and thought she could go on like this. 

And she could, for a while, until something inside of her snapped like a rubber band. Like the tendon in Mason’s wrist gave in under the sharp edge of her teeth.

It felt so significant then, but now she hardly remembers what Mason did that caused her reaction. He stood by his eel tank, having just fed the animal, and said something to her, about women and love and sex, and then he was in the water. Arms search for a grip on the glass to pull himself up, to push Margot’s hands away from him. He scratched and beat against her forearms, but she didn’t feel it even though some of the bruises lasted for weeks. Her body was numb with rage. She felt dizzy with it.

One of the servants pulled her away from the tank, and Margot watched as the man went on to heave Mason out of the water, traumatized but fully alive. 

She didn’t cry, although she wanted to.

* * *

Hannibal Lecter is a strange man. Charming, yes, but like he trained himself to be so. Like he has spent hours in front of a mirror to perfect his genuine smile, and made sure that his eyes would convey it too. Under different circumstances, she might have fallen for it, but, seeing as he’s her therapist, she watches his every move with a critical eye. 

Despite the sense of wrongness about him, she doesn’t find him unlikeable, which might say more about her than it does about him. Perhaps it’s the suits he wears. Margot feels almost compelled to ask who his tailor is.

The fact that he doesn’t judge her for her past actions and instead seems to support them, even, only emphasizes the sympathy she feels toward him. When she tells him of her family’s inheritance and how it would not be passed on to her should Mason die, natural circumstances or otherwise, he is the one to suggest a solution to her. A chance for her to kill her brother and come out triumphant on the other side.

Find a man with a lonely heart and let him touch her. The reward will be worth the discomfort.

He doesn’t use those words and, surely, he doesn’t plan for her to choose one of his other patients to achieve her goal either, but there are only so many men she can get to know in such a short time.

Will Graham is strange in a different way than Doctor Lecter is, but not entirely unlike him either. He’s easy to connect to, although not easy to talk to, and she pities him, almost, for what she has to do. But he’s the perfect candidate, and it’s too late now to change her plans. She won’t find a more suitable man, let alone one that looks as similar to a woman she’s slept with in the past as he does.

And so she visits him. Undresses herself, metaphorically and literally. Lets him in before, well, she lets him in. It isn’t entirely terrible, but, still, relief floods her once it’s over.

She knows he doesn’t want her to leave so soon, wants the warmth and presence of another body, but she has to, she has to, she has to.

* * *

Everything happens at once.

The baby is there, growing inside of her, and then it’s gone, and Mason and knives and pain and what else can he take from her, what else can he cut out, what else will belong to him— 

She griefs silently, as she does with everything, and the days drag on. Then, Mason’s “accident”, both a blessing and a curse. She is relieved that he survived, but the relief is a stab in the gut, and the days drag on. She will simply get used to it, yes, and Mason is much easier to handle like this, but not really, is he? He is merely more desperate for company and revenge, and he still cuts up her future like fabric, stitching and stitching, and the days drag on.

* * *

Alana Bloom has the ability to stop time, or at least time stops when she arrives, whether she means for it to happen or not. Her smile is beautiful and clever, and Margot doesn’t remember the last time she wanted to kiss someone. It must have been years ago.

The woman intrigues her more than Mason’s plans to catch Hannibal Lecter do. Margot is paying attention, she wouldn’t let herself miss out on a single detail, but even more so she is thinking about Alana, looking at her whenever Mason is facing the other direction. The way she carries herself conveys strength and growth—despite the cane or because of it, Margot can’t say yet.

Alana shares her story with them, then a more detailed one when her and Margot are alone. She has been hurt terribly, both inside and out, and she is brimming with a kind of rage that’s impossible to recognize for her. But Margot sees it, sees through it, because it’s the same anger she felt as a child when she stuck her teeth into Mason’s wrist and when she tried to drown him in the tank. It’s invisible until, suddenly, it comes to the surface. Alana doesn’t know yet what she will be capable of. Perhaps it’s better that way.

Margot gives her a tour of the estate. She plans to skip the stable, considering it’s where they met the day before, but Alana wants to see the horses again, wants to know the names of every single one of them, and the childish enthusiasm of it all makes Margot laugh. The sound is foreign coming from her own throat. She hasn’t heard it in so long.

The tour of the house ends in Margot’s bedroom, the two of them sitting in front of the fireplace. Orange light flickers over Alana’s face and she is glowing with it, burning. 

“Long story short, I’ve been thinking about taking a break from relationships.”

“If I were you, I’m not sure I’d ever want to have one again.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Alana smiles. “But I’m not going to be miserable forever. He’s ruined my life enough as it is.”

Margot looks into the flames until her eyes burn. She knows Alana doesn’t mean her, doesn’t know that Margot is going to be alone for the rest of her life, but it still stings. It’s easy, thought, to keep her tone light.

“So, how long do you think the break is going to be?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” There’s something about Alana’s voice, something bright and exciting, that makes Margot turn toward her again. “I used to enjoy being single, but, honestly, I just found it easier than dating. Less messy.”

Margot has never been in a relationship, never even attempted it, but nods in sympathy.

“So I’ve come to the conclusion,” Alana continues, “that I should take a different approach.”

Margot raises a brow, a smile on her lips, but doesn’t speak.

“Maybe I don’t need a break from relationships. Maybe I just need a break from men.”

“In that case, I’ve been taking a break from men my entire life.” Margot’s pulse drums in her ears. It’s been a while since she’s come out to anyone and the sheer thrill and terror of it shocks her every time.

Alana’s eyes brighten at her words. 

“Well, I’m open for anything in the future. But as of today—” Her voice drifts off. She doesn’t need to finish her sentence. Margot knows what she’s going to say.

They don’t kiss that night, but they do the next one, Alana crowding Margot against the closed door of her bedroom. Her breath catches in her throat when Alana uses one of her hands, the one not holding onto her cane, to pull Margot down by the nape of her neck. Their mouths meet and, again, Alana stops the flow of time.

Alana doesn’t ask about Margot’s scars, doesn’t even seem to notice them, and Margot isn’t careful with Alana despite her healing injuries. She can tell the woman is grateful for it, grateful to be touched by someone who doesn’t treat her like she’s going to break. She returns the favor, grabbing at Margot’s shoulders and thighs and hair when she moves her hands just right.

They lie together afterward in comfortable silence, tangled in each other, and Margot wants to cry because she’s never had this. The ability to touch someone and be touched in return, and to stay with them after, to want to stay. 

And she does cry. Quietly so, just her eyes brimming with tears with nothing to stop them from spilling over. Alana gives her a questioning look that shows neither judgment nor pity and simply smiles when Margot shakes her head. She pulls her closer, lets Margot bury her face in the crook of her neck, combs her hand through her hair. 

After a while of silence, when Margot seems to have calmed down, Alana tries to recount the names of all the horses in the stable. Margot smiles when Alana gets a name right, and she smiles when the woman begins to make up her own.

* * *

Weeks pass by like days. The house is warmer with Alana in it, despite the chill of winter. She is the center of every room. Margot doesn’t tell her any of this because she’s never been good with words—a mixture of lack of practice and a general dislike of dramatic confessions of love—but makes sure to translate it, conveying the message through touch and looks. 

Then, Hannibal is caught, along with Will Graham, and Margot tries to calm Alana’s nerves as much as she can. The air is thick and heavy with anticipation. Every room of the house holds an open window.

It doesn’t get easier to breathe when they arrive. In a way, it only gets more difficult. As if there is no air at all. 

Margot only catches glimpses of them. Will looks miserable, like he hasn’t slept in days; Hannibal, strangely, seems ecstatic to be there, despite his restraints and, later, the branding. They’re both different from when she first met them, although she can’t quite tell why. It’s not that she sees them in a different light now, knowing what they’ve been through and what’s they’ve done. They simply aren’t who they were all those months ago.

Mason guts her before she has the time to find out what has changed. Sinks the knife clean into her stomach, just above her navel. Slides downward until everything spills out of her.

A surrogate mother. Part of her body inside someone else. Her son, still alive.

Alana goes with her to the room, after they free Hannibal. Margot isn’t sure what she would have become had she gone alone.

The sight is surreal, so unexpected that neither of them is sure how to react to it. There’s a large table in the center of the room. Upon the table lies a pig, sleeping, its belly round and swollen. The animal is pregnant. They both know, even before they spot the monitor on the wall. The one that shows a human fetus.

“Is he alive?” 

Alana checks the monitors. She says there’s no fetal heartbeat, but Margot would have known by her expression alone.

“Take it out,” she says. Then, louder, “Take it out!”

She doesn’t mean to yell at her, but she has to because the baby is dead. The baby, no longer hers, is dead and she can’t breathe.

“I want to hold him.”

Margot takes the small body from Alana, after the woman has freed it for her, and into her arms. They are the same kind of fragile in that moment, the same kind of dead. The first sob surprises her, so loud it echoes in the silence of the room, and her throat is raw by the time she stops counting. Grief tears open every wound on her body. It creates a new one, too, right above her heart.

Margot cries until she fears her body will turn into water. But Alana holds her through all of it, keeps her arms wrapped tightly around her and the baby, and so she survives. 

* * *

When Margot woke up this morning, she didn’t think it was the day Mason would die. Perhaps she hoped for it, longed for it even. Fantasized about Hannibal’s hands around his throat, and then her own hands replacing them, relentlessly tightening. But she didn’t _know_ and didn’t dare hope for it.

Now, of course, she does know that her brother is going to die. Because she will be the one to kill him.

The part of her that still loved Mason despite everything he’s done to her is gone. Washed it out of her. What she has left now, left only for her brother, is anger. It simmers just below her skin. It wants to bleed to the surface.

Hannibal has cleared the path of every obstacle. If she kills Mason tonight, she will get away for it.

She will be free.

* * *

Margot is the first to react when Mason pulls out his gun. She runs at him, topples him over along with his wheelchair, and the shot he fires collides with the glass of his tank, shattering it. They fall to the floor with Margot on top of him. The gun is lost on the way down, sliding out of Mason’s grip, and Alana kicks it away before coming to help Margot.

Hands tearing at her hair, scratching her face and neck, pounding against her shoulders. Then Alana is there, kneeling at Mason’s head. She grips both of his arms and pins them to the floor. With Margot now straddling his thighs, he is left entirely at their mercy.

Margot pulls a knife from the pocket of her pants and Mason’s eyes widen at the sight of it. The knife belonged to their father. Until today, it had been safely stored in the drawer of Mason’s nightstand.

Before she can let herself hesitate, she brings down the knife. It cuts through the fabric of Mason’s shirt, then slides into the meat of his shoulder.

“Does that feel familiar, Mason? Do you remember when you cut me there?”

She pulls the knife back out. Instead of an answer, he gives her a cry and her mouth curls into a grin.

“What about here?” She cuts into the inside of his right biceps. The arm twitches violently but Alana doesn’t let go. Mason snarls as she pulls the knife back out. The noise turns into a howl when she buries it in the soft flesh at his sides, just below the ribcage. “And here?”

“Margot,” he stammers but before he can go on, Margot pulls the blade back out.

“ _Shh_ , I know. All of that was so long ago, wasn’t it? I promise this one’s easier to remember.”

She leans back, and Mason’s eyes widen because he knows. Still, the pain must be unbearable when she sinks the knife into his stomach. Even more so when she begins to cut, pulling at the flesh to give in until she’s reached the other side. The sounds that escape his throat are less than human. It reminds her, she thinks, of a squealing pig.

Once the knife is retrieved, she bends over him. His eyes are squeezed shut. He might not even know she’s so close to him now, but that doesn’t matter. She just needs him to hear her.

“If only we had talked about what Margot wants.” Her trembling hand brings up the knife to his throat. “Goodbye, Mason,” she says, and cuts.

* * *

Mason’s blood is still warm on her face, but his body lies still and quiet. Margot and Alana are both panting: Margot from adrenaline, Alana from the effort it must have taken to hold Mason down.

“Is he—” She can’t bring herself to finish.

“Yes,” Alana says with a breathy laugh. “Yes, he is.”

Margot tosses the knife into the open tank where it sinks into the water almost soundlessly. When she looks back up, Alana is smiling at her, her eyes bright with both worry and love. She smiles back without having to force herself, then sighs when she takes in her brother. Or whatever she can still recognize of him.

“Mason is dead.”

“Long live Margot.”

She laughs. “Are you always going to be so corny?”

Alana takes Margot’s face in both of her hands, not too firm but not gentle either. Her smile widens as she nods.

“Promise?”

Alana’s thumb brushes over Margot’s lips, wiping away the blood. “I promise.”

They collide, mouths meeting halfway in a warm and ardent kiss. There’s a lot that’s left to do for them. They will have to push Mason into the water. Margot will have to shower, scrub herself clean of Mason’s blood. They will have to practice their lie, spin it into the truth. But they can stay like this for another moment, utterly wrapped up in each other. There is no one in this house, this world, but them. They are the center of every room.

If Alana has the ability to stop time, Margot was the one to restart it tonight. Whatever their future may look like, there is light there. And healing, too; every admission of love like the stitching of a wound.


End file.
